This page is unofficial documentation to allow a new user to setup the environment for compiling and running a TAP under Tapulator. It is not at this time endorsed by the authors of Tapulator, but does rely heavily on information that they have variously published in other places.

This page is a compilation of user experiences, please contribute your own!

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What is Tapulator?

To quote Robin the author of Tapulator: "It's an emulator for the Tap API that I wrote with simonc - Win32 (MFC) based, the source is in berlios. I do most of my TAP development on it as it lets you catch all the bugs that don't relate to API wierdness (and some of those if I've emulated the weirdness correctly)."

The Primary use of the Tapulator is to allow TAPs to be developed and debugged in the MS Visual Studio environment. This has the advantages:

  • a full featured debugger is provided by VS
  • the edit/compile/run cycle can be quick
  • TAPs can be tested and debugged without depriving the family of the use of the Toppy
Tapulator is a Win32 application that has a window that simulates the screen display of the Toppy, and an on-screen graphic of the Toppy remote control which responds to mouse clicks on the keys.

tapulator.jpg

The TAP under development is compiled as a win32 dll, statically linked with libtapulator, which provides a simulated run-time environment, including the TAP API.

Tapulator does:

  • handle many of the functions of the TAP API including
    • OSD functions
    • memory mapped graphics
    • disk I/O
    • remote control events
  • have a remote control UI

Tapulator does not:

  • simulate deeper Toppy behaviour such as:
    • changing the volume
    • putting the Toppy into standby mode
    • Topfield inbuild menus
  • support the simultaneous loading of more than 1 TAP
  • run on Linux, Mac or Topfield OS
See also the Tapulator Readme

Steps to Developing a TAP Using Tapulator

Setup a MS Visual Studio development environment

Get the Tapulator source files

Get the TAP API header file

Compile or obtain tapulator.exe

Compile Tapulator from Source Code or a pre-compiled version of tapulator can be obtained from here

Compile and test a sample TAP project

Develop you own TAP

Known Problems

Where to get help

Currently the best place to get support for Tapulator is the TAP development forum at toppy.org.uk where you will probably get the attention of the authors of Tapulator and others.

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